World Building
Posted: 2017-12-02 09:42am
I'm working on a new RPG world; I've pulled up an old world map I created years ago, and I'm trying to work out what it would be like--weather conditions, where would people live and what would their culture be like, stuff like that.
I realise I could just state by creator's fiat, but where would be the fun in that? I would pefer to have a definite chain of thinking from first principles up.
Here's the world map
And here's the area of most interest:
And a climate map:
Now, for a sense of scale, that 'inland sea' is approximately 6000km across, and that peninsula a little bit left of centre has an area of around 2000000 km sq, or four times France (or about the size of western continental Europe) from the narrow neck.
The opening that connects the inland sea to the greater ocean is about 300km wide. I remember when I made the map, I was wanting this idea of tides thundering through this small gap in awesome fury. I don't know if I managed it, though. 300km seems a bit wide for "awesome fury".
History
That inland sea, and the mountains that cup it, are an extremely recent feature, geologically speaking. That was once solid (largely flat) land where the sea is (it was mostly desert, then, really), until the Mage Wars, when a mage decided to get his opponent by bringing down a meteorite strike on his position. Fortunately, the mage didn't really understand how much damage such a strike would do...so it didn't. However, it did give birth to a huge inland sea, raise up an immense mountain range, wipe out a few civilisations, and incidentally got that goddamn wizard!.
It is hard to say how long ago this happened, since they started using temporal magics. The war is ancient history, ended quite recently, and hasn't actually finished yet.
My thinking so far:
* There's a shallow warm water current being blown west towards that opening to the inland sea by prevailing tropical winds. The current can't make in in, however, due to the back-pressure from the sea, and it's turned south.
* The wind picks up a lot of moisture from the tropical ocean. That wind is then trapped by the mountain ranges that cup the sea, curls clockwise north while dumping its moisture.
* The water level in the inland sea is actually higher than the main ocean, due to the current trying to get in, and the heavy rainfall. There's a net outflow of water from the sea, leaving it less salty.
* That narrow gap would have very strong tides. Being warm and shallow, there would be heavy coral growth. It would be highly dangerous for shipping.
* There would be an upwelling on the north side of the penisula, caused by prevailing winds north creating a northerly current. There would be good fishing there. The south side, however, has a downwelling, and poor fishing.
* The entire land is very rough and mountainous. There are no large plains, although the southern tropics has flatter land than anywhere else.
There are two civilisations of concern at present. One that lives on the peninsula, and one that lives on the tropical southern coast of the inland sea (basically directly south of the penisula tip). They are both at approximately early 1400's level, and have extensive contact with each other.
* The penisula is very rough and mountainous, temperate, forested, and Western European in feel (because that's what I know and am comfortable with. Leave me alone, Chris). I'm thinking it would have lots of small states, and centralisation would be hard.
* The penisula neck is very fortified, to stop the things (sometimes refugees from the war, sometimes their distant descendants) that randomly try to get in.
* They have excellent-quality timber, and a very skilled shipping industry
* While there are some slaves, they are not economically significant, and there's even some who feel that slavery is wrong and should be ended.
* The south coast has some large, heavily populated, and very rich kingdoms. It's very fertile, they can grow abundant food, they grow sugar cane, and also have very fast-growing (but sappy and bad-quality) pine varieties. I've got a picture a little like southern India / Indonesia for appearance, the women wearing something sari-like, the men in something dhoti-like (most without any chest covering. The wealthy wear vests)
* They're a slave economy, getting their slaves from criminals and debt.
* They're economically very unequal, with great masses of poverty-stricken, and the few extremely rich
* It's a place of political intrigue, and very poisonous courts. The rulers have many children, but when a new ruler takes the throne, he has all his brothers killed to avoid challenges.
Military Technology
* They're around early 1400's tech-wise, although they were more advanced before the war.
* They don't have horses. They became extinct during the war. The only mount they have is the jungle elephant.
* There may be fantastical mounts, but nothing in significant numbers, for whatever reasons (impractical, very rare, whatever).
* Wizards are rare, mistrusted, and unreliable. The more powerful a wizard is, the looser a grip he has on sanity. None the less, they exist.
* Wizard magic works on visualising something, really believing it, and it happens. Kind of like The Secret, but for real. How easy it is to do something therefore depends on how easy it is to believe. It is, for instance, very easy to use magic to have a door be unlocked when you haven't even tried it yet and for all you know, it's unlocked. You just walk up, believe it's unlocked, and turn the handle. It's a lot more difficult to believe you can just walk straight across a chasm to the other side, and taking precautions to avoid falling to your death in case of failure in fact betrays a lack of belief and may guarantee failure. But, as long as you believe, you can theoretically do anything. (Game mechanics - the more game-useful a thing is, the harder the roll is to accomplish it.)
* It's very hard to directly affect another living thing, because you got to counter his own disbelief. For instance, it's very hard to cause someone to implode, because he doesn't believe he's going to implode. It's much easier to magically throw a real rock at him.
That's what I've got so far. I'm looking for ideas, corrections, extrapolations. For instance, if you've got 1400 AD western european tech, but no horses, what differences would there be? Would there be lightly armoured men used in the place of light horse to chase down routing enemy after your main troops have broken them?
I don't know if there would be hurricanes in the inland sea, or a monsoon. Travelling north from the tropics would be fast and easy, the wind would go that way following the coast, so square-riggers, and tropical fruit and vegetables in the peninsula markets. Travelling back would be a pain. with a lot of tacking--the ships would probably be re-rigged to something more tack-friendly but even then whatever they bring back would be something not time sensitive.
I don't know what the peninsula would have that the south wants yet, though.
I realise I could just state by creator's fiat, but where would be the fun in that? I would pefer to have a definite chain of thinking from first principles up.
Here's the world map
And here's the area of most interest:
And a climate map:
Now, for a sense of scale, that 'inland sea' is approximately 6000km across, and that peninsula a little bit left of centre has an area of around 2000000 km sq, or four times France (or about the size of western continental Europe) from the narrow neck.
The opening that connects the inland sea to the greater ocean is about 300km wide. I remember when I made the map, I was wanting this idea of tides thundering through this small gap in awesome fury. I don't know if I managed it, though. 300km seems a bit wide for "awesome fury".
History
That inland sea, and the mountains that cup it, are an extremely recent feature, geologically speaking. That was once solid (largely flat) land where the sea is (it was mostly desert, then, really), until the Mage Wars, when a mage decided to get his opponent by bringing down a meteorite strike on his position. Fortunately, the mage didn't really understand how much damage such a strike would do...so it didn't. However, it did give birth to a huge inland sea, raise up an immense mountain range, wipe out a few civilisations, and incidentally got that goddamn wizard!.
It is hard to say how long ago this happened, since they started using temporal magics. The war is ancient history, ended quite recently, and hasn't actually finished yet.
My thinking so far:
* There's a shallow warm water current being blown west towards that opening to the inland sea by prevailing tropical winds. The current can't make in in, however, due to the back-pressure from the sea, and it's turned south.
* The wind picks up a lot of moisture from the tropical ocean. That wind is then trapped by the mountain ranges that cup the sea, curls clockwise north while dumping its moisture.
* The water level in the inland sea is actually higher than the main ocean, due to the current trying to get in, and the heavy rainfall. There's a net outflow of water from the sea, leaving it less salty.
* That narrow gap would have very strong tides. Being warm and shallow, there would be heavy coral growth. It would be highly dangerous for shipping.
* There would be an upwelling on the north side of the penisula, caused by prevailing winds north creating a northerly current. There would be good fishing there. The south side, however, has a downwelling, and poor fishing.
* The entire land is very rough and mountainous. There are no large plains, although the southern tropics has flatter land than anywhere else.
There are two civilisations of concern at present. One that lives on the peninsula, and one that lives on the tropical southern coast of the inland sea (basically directly south of the penisula tip). They are both at approximately early 1400's level, and have extensive contact with each other.
* The penisula is very rough and mountainous, temperate, forested, and Western European in feel (because that's what I know and am comfortable with. Leave me alone, Chris). I'm thinking it would have lots of small states, and centralisation would be hard.
* The penisula neck is very fortified, to stop the things (sometimes refugees from the war, sometimes their distant descendants) that randomly try to get in.
* They have excellent-quality timber, and a very skilled shipping industry
* While there are some slaves, they are not economically significant, and there's even some who feel that slavery is wrong and should be ended.
* The south coast has some large, heavily populated, and very rich kingdoms. It's very fertile, they can grow abundant food, they grow sugar cane, and also have very fast-growing (but sappy and bad-quality) pine varieties. I've got a picture a little like southern India / Indonesia for appearance, the women wearing something sari-like, the men in something dhoti-like (most without any chest covering. The wealthy wear vests)
* They're a slave economy, getting their slaves from criminals and debt.
* They're economically very unequal, with great masses of poverty-stricken, and the few extremely rich
* It's a place of political intrigue, and very poisonous courts. The rulers have many children, but when a new ruler takes the throne, he has all his brothers killed to avoid challenges.
Military Technology
* They're around early 1400's tech-wise, although they were more advanced before the war.
* They don't have horses. They became extinct during the war. The only mount they have is the jungle elephant.
* There may be fantastical mounts, but nothing in significant numbers, for whatever reasons (impractical, very rare, whatever).
* Wizards are rare, mistrusted, and unreliable. The more powerful a wizard is, the looser a grip he has on sanity. None the less, they exist.
* Wizard magic works on visualising something, really believing it, and it happens. Kind of like The Secret, but for real. How easy it is to do something therefore depends on how easy it is to believe. It is, for instance, very easy to use magic to have a door be unlocked when you haven't even tried it yet and for all you know, it's unlocked. You just walk up, believe it's unlocked, and turn the handle. It's a lot more difficult to believe you can just walk straight across a chasm to the other side, and taking precautions to avoid falling to your death in case of failure in fact betrays a lack of belief and may guarantee failure. But, as long as you believe, you can theoretically do anything. (Game mechanics - the more game-useful a thing is, the harder the roll is to accomplish it.)
* It's very hard to directly affect another living thing, because you got to counter his own disbelief. For instance, it's very hard to cause someone to implode, because he doesn't believe he's going to implode. It's much easier to magically throw a real rock at him.
That's what I've got so far. I'm looking for ideas, corrections, extrapolations. For instance, if you've got 1400 AD western european tech, but no horses, what differences would there be? Would there be lightly armoured men used in the place of light horse to chase down routing enemy after your main troops have broken them?
I don't know if there would be hurricanes in the inland sea, or a monsoon. Travelling north from the tropics would be fast and easy, the wind would go that way following the coast, so square-riggers, and tropical fruit and vegetables in the peninsula markets. Travelling back would be a pain. with a lot of tacking--the ships would probably be re-rigged to something more tack-friendly but even then whatever they bring back would be something not time sensitive.
I don't know what the peninsula would have that the south wants yet, though.